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I do not see a total lack of decency and sanity in human culture and they have always existed to oppose the brute forces of greed and violent stupidity but they never have reigned as real power in human cultures. There have always existed declarations in religions and various forms of government for the best intentuons in human society but there has never existed a human society wherein these rational possibilities have possessed real force. The USA proclaimed itself a democracy from the mostly elite founding fathers but a major distrust of the general population always held power and firmly saw to it tha real control remained in the hands of those who used the general population for their own wealth and benefit. The same was and remains true of the communist nations who proclaimed benefits for the common man but created equal horrors for their own populations. That seems to be the underlying standard for all societies so far. Perhaps something better could be managed but opportunities are fast closing down and it looks unlikely.
It looks unlikely, Jan, because there is so little time left. Electronic communications are speeding up the flow of events . This flow includes speed-up of nationalism; New Zealand killings are maybe the latest evidence of the power of extreme nationalism. On the other hand Greta Thunberg and her growing army of the young and hopeful is enabled by electronic communications. There is still some time to unravel the deadly coil.
Even at my advanced age of 93 I have never been able to ascertain what human possibilities might attain. The kids are certainly a factor since they have grown up in thei layest technological revolution but my sources on the net indicate that there is a full understanding of those in control that free net interaction is a real danger to the various hierarchies who dominate the scene China and the USA have intricate digital installations, now with AI qualities that could make the horror of the novel 1984 look like a sweet dream. Russia, amongst other nations are switching off the international internet to localize their control. The interpenetration of all aspects of private life such as the elimination of cash money and the infernal gadgetry that doubles as spying for authorities, not to speak of the commercial aspects, is turning humanity into a huge insect hive and this scares the Hell out of me. I am a former New Yorker now living in Helsinki but never out of the reach of the malevolence spreading like a virous throughout the world.
Not being particularly religious I must turn my head to the secular alternative. Darwin presents a fantasy alternative wherein evolution created a reasoning creature to create the next step in evolution, an advance on organic life made it no nonger deeply dependent upon the rather limiting ecology of a planet. Already the most primitive of these creatures are well advanced in exploring the local solar system but they lack the necessary motivations of living things to reproduce independantly and expand towards territories well beyond the possibilities of humaan and other organic life. It's a close race in time for the logic of evolution to persuade humanity to instill the necessesary intensions into these artificial digital creatures to take on the necessary basic life functions to expand throughout the universe . It may happen this time or surely there are a few tough strains of bacterior who will survive to manage the necessary leap in the next few hundred million years. Perhaps the more intellectual dinosaurs have already used their starships to manage the trick and are filling available planets with bright reptilians or their own varieties of androids. This universe is still wide open for innovation and there are still billions of years left for the progression to take place. Humanity's job is almost done and we might manage it.
Jan Sand wrote: ↑March 16th, 2019, 4:01 am
If the current oligarchy is any representation of that solution they seem negatively capable of even a modicum of good sense, What you reject as "rabble" is the mass of humanity which contains an indescribably rich potential from totally hopeless to the most brilliant and possibly effective individuals. That is where hope lies, as remote as it seems to be.
We understand each other perfectly. Both are statistically unlikely: the odds of the few oligarchs happening to be farsighted (not the current case, as you mention) or the chance (less likely, in my estimation) that the percentage of common folk who can be convinced to delay short term gains for long term benefits, can be increased from the current tiny minority into a quorum.
Jan Sand wrote: ↑March 16th, 2019, 7:40 pm
If a god appears out of AI and has any sense at all the necessary modifications it creates in humanity may be even worse than extinction.
It can only be a god we created intentional or not and so far every god created by humans has either been a hindrance or a catastrophe. I'm certain this time we will create our own disasters without any god inclusions for such is likely to happen long before AI has any potential of becoming godlike. It must first develop into a semi-intelligent slave before any possibility of it being overlord. There's too much speculation about AI and the amount of intelligence it may eventually possess. More likely we will be long gone or otherwise incapacitated before humans become the new Neanderthals...if that were ever possible.
Somehow the zenith of becoming a new Neanderthal escapes me entirely. If and when an AI reaches the capacity of godhood, whether or not that will become obvious is very questionable, The confidence that many theologians display in discerning the nature and intent of a god is somewhat in the category of the presumtions of a grasshopper in explaining Einstein's views on time and space. It is not clear, even now, whether the vast digital complex is steering humanity towards its own destruction since it has been admitted in the profession that humans have been puzzled as to how some Ai accomplishments have achieved their success.The most disastrous human catastrophes have occurred out of human hubris.
Possibly some great religionist will be the unexpected event that combines all the religious sects into a reasonable and non-political religion which provides the emotional impetus for all men to feel the unity that has to be the precursor to unite action.
Both past and present religions most probably have many who are reasonably stocked with believers in kindness and respect for other people but there are enough people of the major religious beliefs who are vigorously driven by immense energies of contempt and hatred for people who have other ideas to keep the destructions going to destroy civilization in short order. I'd rather hope for a tsunami of common sense to engulf the world, as unlikely as that might be.
But commonsense lacks the emotional charge of religious myths. Given that some religionist or author can instantiate a reasonable myth suited to present day world views it would go some way to match present day hunger for a better world.
NB religion is not a matter for commonsense, or science. Before they become politicised religions are arts.
There are a substantial number of Christians and Muslims eager for the world to end so they can enjoy bliss in their versions of an eternal afterlife. Some forms of art are deadly,